Why do most site migrations lose traffic?

The single biggest cause is incomplete or chained redirects. When old URLs return 200 alongside the new ones, or 301 to a 302 that 301s again, Google takes weeks to consolidate signals and you lose link equity in the meantime. The second biggest is render parity loss — the old site shipped HTML, the new site ships a JavaScript shell that crawlers can't fully render.

How long does it take to recover rankings after a bad migration?

If the redirects are clean, 30–60 days. If redirects are broken, 6–12 months — and only if you fix them quickly. Some sites never fully recover because backlinks naturally migrate to the working URLs of competitors during the dip.

What's the safest way to migrate a site?

Pilot one URL cluster first — usually 20–50 pages of a high-value template like blog or services. Watch rankings, indexation, and Search Console for 30 days. Only then commit to the full rollout. This is how 'boring' migrations look from the outside.

Why most site migrations lose traffic — and what to do instead

A bad migration can wipe out 20–60% of organic traffic within weeks. Here's the engineering discipline that prevents it — redirect mapping, render parity, and the pilot-cluster pattern.

What this page covers

Index Right helps content-heavy businesses protect crawlability, indexability, metadata, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and answer-engine visibility during technical SEO migrations.

This raw HTML fallback exists for search crawlers, social crawlers, and AI citation systems that do not execute JavaScript. The hydrated React app provides the full interactive experience for users.

Why most site migrations lose traffic — and what to do instead

What this page covers

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